As world leaders reacted to the US president’s “liberation day” tariff policies demolishing the international trading order, about $2.5tn (£1.9tn) was wiped off Wall Street and share prices in other financial centres across the globe.
World leaders from Brussels to Beijing rounded on Trump. China condemned “unilateral bullying” practices and the EU said it was drawing up countermeasures.
While Trump timed his Wednesday evening Rose Garden address to avoid live tickers of crashing stock markets, that fate arrived when Asian exchanges opened hours later.
From a UK perspective, a lot of US cars would be illegal to drive on public roads here - too large, too dangerous for pedestrians and other road users. “Dangerous” also applies to some of your other potential exports too. Chlorinated chicken, for instance, isn’t considered safe for consumption. So the absence of a market for those goods isn’t simply “customer preference”.
As a European, we’ve been too dependent on the US on some things for too long. We need to be more independent. The situation in Ukraine has shown that; we need to be able to support our allies better. But the US trashing their own economy, making themselves into global pariahs and handing over their superpower status to China is what I would have described as “not my dream way” of achieving that.
Apart from the point that I’m not an American, I consider the issues you raised as part of “marketablility” – if it is so unsafe that it is illegal here, you can’t bring it on the market. But it also includes issues like American cars simply being to big for European roads (I recently had an issue with a US brand pickup truck driver noticing that the car is too big for the city’s underground car park. As he was in the queue in front of me, it took a while to sort this mess out).
That we Europeans have to stick closer together is something I preach for decades now, If Trumps tantrums finally helps some European politicians to see the light, so be it. And if this leads to taking down American market dominance at the same time, I’m not going to cry a river.